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Purpose – Health system performance depends on production and use of quality health data and information. Routine health information systems (RHIS) are defined as systems that provide information at regular intervals of a year or less to meet predictable information needs. These include paper-based or electronic health records and facility- and district-level management information systems. RHIS are receiving increasing attention as an essential component of efficient, country-owned, integrated national systems. To guide investment decisions on RHIS, evidence is needed on which types of RHIS interventions work and which do not.

Design/methodology/approach – This chapter is a systematic review of the literature on the evaluation of RHIS interventions in low- and middle-income countries, starting from the premise that investments in RHIS could be better understood and so produce greater benefits than they currently do.

Findings – We describe the conceptual literature on the determinants of RHIS performance and its role in improving health systems functioning, discuss the evidence base on the effectiveness of strategies to improve RHIS performance, provide an overview of RHIS evaluation challenges, and make suggestions to improve the evidence base.

Originality/value – The goal is to help ensure that (a) RHIS interventions are appropriately designed and implemented to improve health systems functioning and (b) resulting RHIS information is used more effectively.

The aim of this study is to explore mortality data collection after a destructive earthquake in Bam, Iran.

This is a case study of mortality data collection using a qualitative approach. The study data were collected through interviews with people involved with data collection and processing in Iran, and an evaluation of routinely collected data.

The results indicated that there were many limitations affecting data collection after the earthquake. These limitations are rooted in basic problems within the existing data collection system and a lack of co‐ordination between the groups collecting data, including national and international aid groups that provided help after the earthquake.

The research is based on a very large and destructive earthquake; the results may be different for other natural disasters such as floods.

The main target group of this study is the decision makers involved with the disaster relief issues at national and international levels. This issue of data collection is imperative for future disaster aid.

The study highlights the problems affecting routine collection of mortality data after a disaster, arising from the scant attention paid to proper documentation.

The purpose of this paper is to explore factors contributing to the dynamics in healthcare work practices and how health workers cope with the emerging dynamics. By focusing on these aspects, the study seeks to inform the design and implementation of health management information systems (HMIS).

An ethnographic study of HMIS work practices in Tanzania was conducted. The collected data were analysed using concepts from Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT).

The complex and dynamic demands placed upon static healthcare information systems cause unregulated and inconsistent changes to off‐systems work practices. CHAT is a useful framework for identifying emerging gaps within existing information systems (IS).

This study builds upon a research and development project known as the Health Information Systems Programme (HISP). HISP aims at addressing the problems of fragmentation, multiple data standards and lack of tools for data management in HMIS in low‐income countries. The findings from this study have practical implications for the design and implementation of IT‐based IS within the healthcare industry in general and within the HISP initiatives in particular.

The paper offers a new perspective for conceptualizing the dynamics in healthcare work practices by looking at the means and solutions that health workers produce, not only as products of dynamics but as factors that inform and shape the design and implementation of new IT and IS.

Section 1 begins with an chapter focused on the state of health information exchange within and among nations. Vest writes of the relation of exchange efforts to national health care systems, the common challenges, and the implications of cross-border information sharing. Also written from a broader view is the chapter by Hotchkiss and colleagues that reviews the use of routine health information systems (RHIS) and makes suggestions for how to enhance their role in improving health system functioning. Their work outlines the “numerous knowledge gaps on the ability of RHIS to improve health systems functioning and performance” and puts forward a call to assess the effectiveness of RHIS projects in order to build the evidence-base in this realm.

Data comprise one of the key resources currently used in organizations. High-quality data are those that are appropriate for use by the customer. The quality of data is a key factor in determining the level of healthcare in hospitals, and its improvement leads to an improved quality of health and treatment and ultimately increases patient satisfaction. The purpose of this paper is to assess the quality of emergency patients’ information in a hospital information system.

This cross-sectional study was conducted on 385 randomly selected records of patients admitted to the emergency department of Shahid Beheshti Hospital in Kashan, Iran, in 2016. Data on five dimensions of quality, including accuracy, accessibility, timeliness, completeness and definition, were collected using a researcher-made checklist and were then analyzed in SPSS. The results are presented using descriptive statistics, such as frequency distribution and percentage.

The overall quality of emergency patients’ information in the hospital information system was 86 percent, and the dimensions of quality scored 87.7 percent for accuracy, 86.8 percent for completeness, 83.9 percent for timeliness, 79 percent for definition and 62.1 percent for accessibility.

Increasing the quality of patient information at emergency departments can lead to improvements in the timely diagnosis and management of diseases and patient and personnel satisfaction, and reduce hospital costs.

Despite the presence of electronic medical records systems, traditional paper-based methods are often used in many countries to document data and eliminate medical record deficiencies. These methods waste patient and hospital resources. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the traditional deficiency management system and determine the requirements of an electronic deficiency management system in settings that currently use paper records alongside electronic hospital information systems.

This mixed-method study was performed in three phases. First, the traditional process of medical records deficiency management was qualitatively evaluated. Second, the accuracy of identifying deficiencies by the traditional and redesigned checklists was compared. Third, the requirements for an electronic deficiency management system were discussed in focus group sessions.

Problems in the traditional system include inadequate guidelines, incomplete procedures for evaluating sheets and subsequent delays in activities. Problems also included the omission of some vital data elements and a lack of feedback about the documentation deficiencies of each documenter. There was a significant difference between the mean number of deficiencies identified by traditional and redesigned checklists (p < 0.0001). The authors proposed an electronic deficiency management system based on redesigned checklists with improved functionalities such as discriminating deficiencies based on the documenter’s role, providing systematic feedback and generating automatic reports.

Previous studies only examined the positive effect of audit and feedback methods to enhance the documentation of data elements in electronic and paper medical records. The authors propose an electronic deficiency management system for medical records to solve those problems. Health-care policymakers, hospital managers and health information systems developers can use the proposed system to manage deficiencies and improve medical records documentation.

This study aims to identify health workforce challenges at Iranian hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This was a conventional content analysis study conducted in 2020. The population consisted of the managers (heads of hospitals, managers and matrons) and staff (nurses, physicians, etc.) of eligible hospitals. The participants were selected using purposive sampling, and data saturation was achieved after 28 interviews. The data were analyzed in MAXQDA10.

In total, 28 interviews were conducted with 10 women and 18 men. The challenges of hospital human resources were categorized into five main themes and 15 sub-themes. The main themes were the shortage of human resources, burnout, the need to acquire new knowledge and skills, the employees’ health and safety and the reward system.

Identification of challenges faced by human resources is the first step toward preventing human force shortage and psychological problems in the personnel. Implementing the recommendations of the present study would assist the proper management of hospitals’ human resources.

The purpose of this study was to explore the factors affecting adoption of mHealth services among the older women in Bangladesh. As this portion of the total population is rapidly increasing in Dhaka City.

Using the technology acceptance model as a theoretical framework, this study introduces perceived reliability, price value and technology anxiety as new factor reflecting the user’s reliability, beliefs and monetary concerns in the acceptance of mHealth services. A structured survey was conducted to collect the required data from convenience sampling of 271 mHealth end users from Dhaka city in Bangladesh.

The study confirmed that perceived usefulness, perceived reliability; price value and technology anxiety had a significant impact on mHealth adoption. Ease of use did not influence on the adoption of mHealth services.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first to investigate the determinant of mHealth adoption among older Women. Moreover, the insights from this study could benefit mHealth services providers and policymakers in implementing more effective marketing strategies to increase the acceptability of mHealth services.

The purpose of this paper is to argue for a theoretical framework by which development of computer based health information systems (CHIS) can be made sustainable. Health Management and promotion thrive on well‐articulated CHIS. There are high levels of risk associated with the development of CHIS in the context of least developed countries (LDC), thereby making them unsustainable.

This paper is based largely on literature survey on health promotion and information systems.

The main factors accounting for the sustainability problem in less developed countries include poor infrastructure, inappropriate donor policies and strategies, poor infrastructure and inadequate human resource capacity. To counter these challenges and to ensure that CHIS deployment in LDCs is sustainable, it is proposed that the activities involved in the implementation of these systems be incorporated into organizational routines. This will ensure and secure the needed resources as well as the relevant support from all stakeholders of the system; on a continuous basis.

This paper sets out to look at the issue of CHIS sustainability in LDCs, theoretically explains the factors that account for the sustainability problem and develops a conceptual model based on theoretical literature and existing empirical findings.